An Approach to Assertiveness in University Students

Incorporating character formation in the curriculum goes beyond the professional competence acquired through disciplinary studies. It refers to how people get involved in the world, which implies that students form attributes that allow them to assertively face an increasingly challenging world with personal integrity and social responsibility, in addition to motivating them to be active agents and contributors to the common good. Knowing university students’ degree of assertiveness to propose training actions is fascinating as this research is the first phase of a significant project; an exploratory and descriptive study was conducted using the Multidimensional Assertiveness Scale on 461 students. The results showed that, according to assertiveness levels, 77.4% are in the medium range, 14% are in the high range, and 8.4% are in the low range. Additionally, a series of independent sample tests were conducted about the effect of gender and academic area on indirect assertiveness. In this regard, the female group is higher than the male group, and concerning the effect of academic area, there were no differences among them. It is recommended that different assertiveness training programmes be integrated into the university curriculum to help improve assertiveness levels. It is suggested that quasi-experimental research be continued to determine the impact of the actions. ©The authors ©Springer.